What Caught My Eye Today

Golf - What is the only headline that could trump Tiger Woods winning his 15th major championship? How about Tiger Woods not winning his 15th major championship? Dude had a two stroke heads going into the final round of the PGA Championship and ended up losing by 3-strokes to 101st ranked Y. E. Yang from South Korea. To be fair, Tiger could not buy a putt on Sunday and this dude Yang played probably the round of his life, but still, Tiger was 14-0 in closing the deal on a major when leading on Sunday, so, yeah, this was a bit of a surprise to pretty much everyone but Mr. Yang.

Cuba - I don't like to laugh at the expense of someone else's hardship, but you have to admit, the circumstances here are rather amusing. Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year. Cuba both imports toilet paper and produces its own, but does not currently have enough raw materials to make it. Here's my favorite part. "The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper," an official said on state-run radio. Important? I should say so. I don't think I'm alone in thinking when I'm done doing my thing, there is pretty much nothing that ranks higher up on my list of priorities than finishing up the paperwork; and you cannot do that if you don't have any paper to work with. I'm just saying.

Dance - Former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay will join 15 celebrities from the worlds of entertainment and sports in kicking up their heels on the new season of "Dancing With the Stars. Huh? Why would he subject himself to this sort of ridicule? You would think that he would have gotten his fill of embarrassment from being a U.S. Congressman. Other hopefuls include entertainer Donny Osmond; singers Mya, Macy Gray and Aaron Carter; actors Melissa Joan Hart, Debi Mazar and Ashley Hamilton (son of George); models Joanna Krupa and Kathy Ireland; reality stars Kelly Osbourne and Mark Dacascos ("the Chairman" on Food Network's "Iron Chef America"); mixed martial artist Chuck Liddell; professional snowboarder Louie Vito; Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin; and former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin. My money is on Michael Irvin and Donny Osmond for the guys and Joanna Krupa and Natalie Coughlin for the gals to make the finals. And you might as well give the trophy to Irvin now. Those football players have quite the following...though I haven't the faintest idea why.

India - Here's a disturbing bit of news--though, I suppose not altogether surprising.Few outsiders realize that India has its own Hindu version of the Taliban. Extremist Hindu authorities known as khap panchayats act like parliaments unto themselves, enforcing Hindu orthodoxy through "honor killings" and other severe punishments. Their decree that every woman must bear at least two sons is behind much of the selective abortion and female infanticide in India. Khaps have existed in northwestern India for centuries and some are known to control thousands of villages. What is it with all these religious interpretations that appear to throw women under the proverbial bus? Seriously, I'm beginning to wonder if all these guys that are making up these rules (I can only assume that the authorities are mostly male) are making up for crappy childhoods and lashing out as a result of some sort of maternal neglect.

And while we are on the subject...

Psychology - We learn more from failure than success, says the old aphorism. Obviously this aphorism was the product of some loser's imagination. A new study out of the Massachuetts Institute of Technology suggests that this is simply not true. Researchers trained monkeys to turn their heads left or right depending on which image from a set of pictures was shown. When the monkeys chose correctly, they received a reward. The study found that when the monkeys made the right choices, the neurons involved in learning and discrimination were very active. According to the researchers, success breeds success, because the rewards it produces raise attention levels. Oh great, another aphorism. That aside, I believe the gist of this study suggests that doing things correctly tends to be rewarded. Given that positive reinforcement, people tend to try to do things correctly more often. They needed a study to figure this out?